“You know why. I saw the postman, I saw the look on your face and I saw you stuff a letter into your pocket.”

“Oh.”

“Let’s see it.”

“It’s probably just an ad for colostomy bags. They have a mailing list for everyone over—”

“Siri! I have a noodle strainer in my hand. In the underground, they taught us thirty ways to disfigure a man using a noodle strainer, so don’t push me.”

Siri fished out the crumpled envelope and tore it open. They sat at the nearest table while Siri scoured the letter. He looked up.

“Well?” she said.

“Colostomy bags,” he said.

Daeng reached across and thrust the strainer, missing his already-disfigured ear by a fraction.

“I can’t read it,” he said.

“English?”

“Same handwriting.”

She took the letter from him, nodded, and slid it into her apron pocket.

Dtui was off at some cooperative with her group, so they had to wait until ten to get a translation. Bruce had an appointment to get a Lao driving license at nine. That involved taking his Australian license to the motor registry department, translating it for the clerk, and waiting an hour while she typed up a new one and attached a photograph to it. They insisted on taking the photograph themselves so Bruce arrived at the noodle shop with a license that looked like it belonged to a Solomon Islander.

“Makes your teeth look nice and white though,” said Daeng.

“In fact they’re all you can see,” said Bruce. “They’ll have to turn the lights out to ID me.”

He was carrying a heavy cloth bag and a clip file. He put the file on the table in front of Siri and Daeng. They looked at it.

“Go ahead, open it,” said Bruce with that big Solomon Islands smile.

Daeng flipped open the cover and there at the top was their title page held down with silver clips. They’d given their film the working title Death to the Oppressors. Both the Ministry of Culture and the Lao Women’s Union had expressed their concerns, but Siri had assured them it was just a temporary filler until they had feedback from their marketing department. But it was Death to the Oppressors that stared back at them from the front page of the script. It was the most professional looking thing they’d ever seen: no typing errors, no cross throughs, no smudged or fading ink, no wine stains.

Daeng continued to thumb through the pile: the list of characters, the timeline. By the time the first page of the screenplay showed itself, Siri had already decided to adopt Bruce as his only son and leave him the Triumph in his will.

“How did you achieve all this?” Siri asked.